CAPABILITY

Which platform should we select?

With this question most organizations have difficulties to find the right answer easily. Looking at the market and growing number of available software vendors for customer experience management solutions, it is obvious that only in rare cases it is a quick decision.

Even there are quadrants that categorizes tools into leaders and such with lower ratings, it is crucial to select the right vendor that really fits into your specific needs, environment and strategic targets. Market researches can provide a first guidance but will not be enough to give you the right level of confidence which tool to pick.

Basic questions like “How can we compare the provided functionality and does it satisfy by business requirements? How does the integration work out? Which flexibility is provided with the platform? Does the vendor strategy fit to our company?” needs a structured tool evaluation and selection approach.

How does your software selection look like?

A structured approach requires the evaluation of many factors to make a considered decision.

In many organizations we see that the selection of the future customer engagement platform is unfortunately not following a defined evaluation process.

Companies often skip the essential step to really think about the strategic targets in the area of marketing, sales or customer service first and determine the benefits the empowered software should bring. The vendor and tool selection process needs to be seen as an integral part for a high-performing IT and business strategy.

During tool evaluation and selection process organizations are faced with challenges like:

Multiple alternatives and unclear assessment criteria

Various decision makers need to arrive at a consensus decision

Subjective judgment and personal preferences

Political environments

Imperative to minimize time and costs taken to come to a decision

Feature based selection instead of process based decision, giving more preference to internal user than to end-to-end customer scenario

Accenture recommends the use of a hierarchical, weighted vendor evaluation model to ensure an objective, comprehensive and transparent software evaluation process. The typically recommended requirement hierarchy includes the assessment of provided functionality, processes, the technology fit into the existing IT architecture, the coverage of services as well as the stability of the vendor or TCO view.

The exemplary set of criteria and subcriteria needs to be adapted to the specific/respective situation. The criteria model should not be overly focused on functionality and technology, but also take into account the importance of viability, costs, and services.

Like when buying a car we compare the specifications of several vendor models and make the final decision after several iterations and possible test drives (system demos, proof of concepts, etc.).

Why running the software selection with Accenture

Accenture, as the leading Technology Consulting provider with a vendor agnostic approach is the perfect partner to shape your digital customer experience management roadmap.

The offering includes a structured IT strategy and software evaluation approach that is customized to your needs and brings in key assets like a specific software selection tool covering the market relevant vendors.

The methodology is based on three phases and can, depending on the scope, be achieved in a four to 9 weeks’ timeframe.

Analyze current state: In order to be able to run an effective and efficient platform evaluation, it is essential to understand in the first step the current environment, business context and determine the value drivers in your organization. Only based on a precise diagnose of the current state and targets, it is possible to identify gaps and opportunities and shape the successful roadmap in the next steps.

Develop future state: Based on the initial analysis, the list of possible vendors is reduced. Against the remaining software options, the standard requirement hierarchy is adapted, detailed to match scope and especially bring in the specific weighting and prioritization.

The game changer during those steps is the usage of the Accenture Software Selection Tool for customer experience management solutions. It structures the work and simplifies the vendor evaluation ranking tremendously.

Create IT roadmap: The to-be application landscape is taken to form the IT roadmap. To get the buy-in from stakeholders, steering and investment teams, we develop a value plan and integrate the solution into overall programs.

What is behind the Accenture Software Selection Tool?

It contains the deep Accenture expertise in currently 13 market relevant software solutions for customer experience management. The tool is continuously enhanced taking latest vendor releases into account. All software solutions are regularly assessed along the nine main areas:

General (architecture, UI, performance, training, etc.)

Marketing

Sales

Service

Analytics

Master data management

Others (mobility, collaboration, etc.)

Social media

Marketing automation

Within 68 sub-categories a detailed assessment and scoring of 280+ functionalities provides a detailed and standardized comparison of features.

The tool has the needed flexibility and configuration options to adapt the scoring of tools to the targeted evaluation scope and weighting of factors. Clear benefit and advantage compared to usual market researches is that this approach provides you with the insight to evaluate strengths and weaknesses of the different software solution in the specific context of your organization. Exactly this is required to make the right software decision for a successful roadmap.

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Client benefits

The Accenture software selection approach and assets for digital customer experience management is bringing value add to your organization in the following areas:

PROVEN APPROACH & HOLISTIC EVALUATION: Decision based on facts against defined value drivers leveraging the full breath of decision criteria.

ENVIRONMENT SPECIFIC BUT VENDOR AGNOSTIC: As a vendor independent provider for Technology Consulting services we focus on your needs and bring in our practices and vendor partnerships.

SAVE TIME & EFFORT: Utilizing the Accenture Software Selection Tool you benefit from broad research and real practice experience from many implementations, always up-to-date on the latest releases of the software.

REDUCE RISK: Defined roadmap for your future platform fulfilling the stakeholder expectations and knowing vendor strategies and roadmap to be able to rely on the selection for the future.